Richard Leach Maddox
Encyclopedia
Richard Leach Maddox was an English
photographer and physician
who invented lightweight gelatin
negative plates for photography
in 1871.
Maddox freely gave his discovery to the world, saying (to W.J. Harrison, in a letter of 1887) that "[I had] no thought of bringing the subject into notice until it had been lifted from the cradle". Maddox, at the initial stage of invention, could probably produce only 'lantern slides' contact-copied from his microscope plates, the slow speed being impracticable for camera lens images.
It was these origins that led to the miniaturization and adaptability of photographic emulsions, and consequently paved the way for social and action photography and cinematography.
was invented in 1851 by Frederick Scott Archer
. This invention required only two to three seconds of light exposure
to produce an image, but plates had to be sensitized at the time of exposure, exposed while the emulsion was still wet, and processed immediately after exposure in the camera.
When he noticed that his health was being affected by the 'wet' collodion's ether
vapor, Maddox began looking for a substitute. He suggested in the September 8, 1871 British Journal of Photography
article An Experiment with Gelatino-Bromide that sensitizing chemicals cadmium bromide
and silver nitrate
should be coated on a glass plate in gelatin, a transparent substance used for making candies. Eventually Charles Bennett
made the first gelatin dry plates for sale; before long the emulsion
could be coated on celluloid
roll film
.
Dry plates had been tried before: silver nitrate
with a binder of albumen - derived from egg white, and widely used in printing-out paper in the nineteenth century - had been coated on glass; but these proved to be too insensitive for camera use. Gelatin had also been suggested by photo-theorist and color pioneer Thomas Sutton, and the substance would also have been known to Maddox - himself an eminent microscope practitioner - through its use as a holding/preserving base used in microscope slides.
Initially Maddox tried other bases. He combined silver bromide with "vegetable gummy matters" (lichen, linseed, quince), and "starchy substances" (rice, tapioca, sago). "Often I fancied I was just within the doorway when the door closed, and other plans had to be tried." Finally he tried gelatin from a packet of Nelson's Gelatine Granuals.
Maddox prepared a number of plates, exposing by contact-printing them from other negatives, and putting each through a different exposure trial. "The resulting prints were very delicate in detail, of a colour varying between a bistre and olive tint, and after washing dried to a brilliant surface". He later described trials on "out-of-door subjects", but it was "impossible to get some laurels depicted in anything more than black and white" (i.e. without gray-scale tones).
The advantages of the dry plate were obvious: photographers could use commercial dry plates off the shelf instead of having to prepare their own emulsions in a mobile darkroom. Negatives did not have to be developed immediately. Also, for the first time, cameras could be made small enough to be hand-held, or even concealed: further research created 'fast' exposure times, which led to 'snapshot' photography (and the 'Kodak' camera with roll film), ultimately paving the way for cinematography.
in 1849. They lived from circa 1860 in the Woolston area of Southampton - an area where many medical men were located, due to the vicinity of the recently-built military hospital at Netley
. Amelia died in 1871.
In 1875, Maddox married his second wife, Agnes. In this same year they left for Corsica
, and then lived for a time in Bordighera
. Maddox's son by this marriage, Walter, was born in Southampton in 1880. Prior to that date, the Maddox's were living at Gunnersbury, London.
As an indicator of the condition of his health, Maddox was listed as 'not practising at present' in the national censuses for 1861 and 1871. His daughter wrote, however, "He was at different times resident physician to the late Duke of Montrose
, the late Sir Watkins Wynn, and the late Katherine Bannerman," indicating periods of better health.
From 1886, Maddox lived (according to his daughter) in "a most retired manner" at the house called 'Greenbank' in Portswood, Southampton, dying there on May 11, 1902.
By 1892, £500 had been raised, with a further £100 from the Ilford Company
. Taylor later criticized John Burgess in a counter claimant as "entering the field two years later, and even then not publishing his process, which remains a secret to this day." Pringle wrote: "Whatever Dr Maddox has done for science has been without hope of recompense, and without attempt to turn his discoveries to pecuniary profit".. Similarly, the editor of the American Amateur Photographer, in the same month, found that "no honor is great enough to bestow on a discoverer who acts so generously in giving his process to the world".
Maddox was awarded the John Scott Medal in 1889 and the Royal Photographic Society
's Silver Progress Medal in 1901.
Maddox was survived by his children, Isabella and Richard Willes, an artist, who each died in 1929 and 1953 respectively.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
photographer and physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
who invented lightweight gelatin
Gelatin
Gelatin is a translucent, colorless, brittle , flavorless solid substance, derived from the collagen inside animals' skin and bones. It is commonly used as a gelling agent in food, pharmaceuticals, photography, and cosmetic manufacturing. Substances containing gelatin or functioning in a similar...
negative plates for photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
in 1871.
Early life
Richard Leach Maddox was born at Bath, England, on August 4, 1816.Photomicographic studies
Long before his discovery of the dry gelatin photographic emulsion, Maddox was prominent in what was called photomicrography - photographing minute organisms under the microscope. The eminent photomicrographer of the day, Lionel S. Beale, included as a frontispiece images made by Maddox in his manual 'How to work with the Microscope'Maddox freely gave his discovery to the world, saying (to W.J. Harrison, in a letter of 1887) that "[I had] no thought of bringing the subject into notice until it had been lifted from the cradle". Maddox, at the initial stage of invention, could probably produce only 'lantern slides' contact-copied from his microscope plates, the slow speed being impracticable for camera lens images.
It was these origins that led to the miniaturization and adaptability of photographic emulsions, and consequently paved the way for social and action photography and cinematography.
Invention of lightweight gelatin dry plates
In photography, the Collodion processCollodion process
The collodion process is an early photographic process. It was introduced in the 1850s and by the end of that decade it had almost entirely replaced the first practical photographic process, the daguerreotype. During the 1880s the collodion process, in turn, was largely replaced by gelatin dry...
was invented in 1851 by Frederick Scott Archer
Frederick Scott Archer
Frederick Scott Archer invented the photographic collodion process which preceded the modern gelatin emulsion. He was born in Bishop's Stortford in the UK and is remembered mainly for this single achievement which greatly increased the accessibility of photography for the general public.tyler was...
. This invention required only two to three seconds of light exposure
Exposure (photography)
In photography, exposure is the total amount of light allowed to fall on the photographic medium during the process of taking a photograph. Exposure is measured in lux seconds, and can be computed from exposure value and scene luminance over a specified area.In photographic jargon, an exposure...
to produce an image, but plates had to be sensitized at the time of exposure, exposed while the emulsion was still wet, and processed immediately after exposure in the camera.
When he noticed that his health was being affected by the 'wet' collodion's ether
Ether
Ethers are a class of organic compounds that contain an ether group — an oxygen atom connected to two alkyl or aryl groups — of general formula R–O–R'. A typical example is the solvent and anesthetic diethyl ether, commonly referred to simply as "ether"...
vapor, Maddox began looking for a substitute. He suggested in the September 8, 1871 British Journal of Photography
British Journal of Photography
The British Journal of Photography is a magazine about photography publishing in-depth articles, profiles of photographs, analyses, and techological reviews.-History:...
article An Experiment with Gelatino-Bromide that sensitizing chemicals cadmium bromide
Cadmium bromide
Cadmium bromide is a cream-coloured crystalline ionic cadmium salt of hydrobromic acid that is soluble in water. It is very toxic, along with other cadmium compounds.-Uses:It is used in the manufacturing of photographic film, engraving and lithography....
and silver nitrate
Silver nitrate
Silver nitrate is an inorganic compound with chemical formula . This compound is a versatile precursor to many other silver compounds, such as those used in photography. It is far less sensitive to light than the halides...
should be coated on a glass plate in gelatin, a transparent substance used for making candies. Eventually Charles Bennett
Charles Bennett
Charles Bennett may refer to:* Charles Bennet, 4th Earl of Tankerville, cricket pioneer, * Charles Bennett , British track and field athlete, most notable for 1500m events* Charles Bennett...
made the first gelatin dry plates for sale; before long the emulsion
Emulsion
An emulsion is a mixture of two or more liquids that are normally immiscible . Emulsions are part of a more general class of two-phase systems of matter called colloids. Although the terms colloid and emulsion are sometimes used interchangeably, emulsion is used when both the dispersed and the...
could be coated on celluloid
Celluloid
Celluloid is the name of a class of compounds created from nitrocellulose and camphor, plus dyes and other agents. Generally regarded to be the first thermoplastic, it was first created as Parkesine in 1862 and as Xylonite in 1869, before being registered as Celluloid in 1870. Celluloid is...
roll film
Roll film
Rollfilm or roll film is any type of spool-wound photographic film protected from white light exposure by a paper backing, as opposed to film which is protected from exposure and wound forward in a cartridge. Confusingly, roll film was originally often referred to as "cartridge" film because of its...
.
Dry plates had been tried before: silver nitrate
Silver nitrate
Silver nitrate is an inorganic compound with chemical formula . This compound is a versatile precursor to many other silver compounds, such as those used in photography. It is far less sensitive to light than the halides...
with a binder of albumen - derived from egg white, and widely used in printing-out paper in the nineteenth century - had been coated on glass; but these proved to be too insensitive for camera use. Gelatin had also been suggested by photo-theorist and color pioneer Thomas Sutton, and the substance would also have been known to Maddox - himself an eminent microscope practitioner - through its use as a holding/preserving base used in microscope slides.
Initially Maddox tried other bases. He combined silver bromide with "vegetable gummy matters" (lichen, linseed, quince), and "starchy substances" (rice, tapioca, sago). "Often I fancied I was just within the doorway when the door closed, and other plans had to be tried." Finally he tried gelatin from a packet of Nelson's Gelatine Granuals.
Maddox prepared a number of plates, exposing by contact-printing them from other negatives, and putting each through a different exposure trial. "The resulting prints were very delicate in detail, of a colour varying between a bistre and olive tint, and after washing dried to a brilliant surface". He later described trials on "out-of-door subjects", but it was "impossible to get some laurels depicted in anything more than black and white" (i.e. without gray-scale tones).
The advantages of the dry plate were obvious: photographers could use commercial dry plates off the shelf instead of having to prepare their own emulsions in a mobile darkroom. Negatives did not have to be developed immediately. Also, for the first time, cameras could be made small enough to be hand-held, or even concealed: further research created 'fast' exposure times, which led to 'snapshot' photography (and the 'Kodak' camera with roll film), ultimately paving the way for cinematography.
Family
Maddox and his first wife, Amelia, were married in ConstantinopleConstantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
in 1849. They lived from circa 1860 in the Woolston area of Southampton - an area where many medical men were located, due to the vicinity of the recently-built military hospital at Netley
Netley
Netley, sometimes called Netley Abbey, is a village on the south coast of Hampshire, England, situated on the east side of the city of Southampton...
. Amelia died in 1871.
In 1875, Maddox married his second wife, Agnes. In this same year they left for Corsica
Corsica
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....
, and then lived for a time in Bordighera
Bordighera
Bordighera is a town and comune in the Province of Imperia, Liguria .-History:The city was founded around the 4th century BC by the Ligures....
. Maddox's son by this marriage, Walter, was born in Southampton in 1880. Prior to that date, the Maddox's were living at Gunnersbury, London.
Pause in practice
It was poor health that again halted Maddox's experiments. But even then it is an odd fact that he had been persuaded to publish his findings in 1871, before he felt his trials were complete. The reason for this is that the editor of the British Journal of Photography, J. Traill Taylor, had fallen ill and made a desperate appeal for contributions from his friends.As an indicator of the condition of his health, Maddox was listed as 'not practising at present' in the national censuses for 1861 and 1871. His daughter wrote, however, "He was at different times resident physician to the late Duke of Montrose
Duke of Montrose
The title of Duke of Montrose was created twice in the peerage of Scotland, firstly in 1488 for David Lindsay, 5th Earl of Crawford. It was forfeited and then returned, but only for the period of the holder's lifetime...
, the late Sir Watkins Wynn, and the late Katherine Bannerman," indicating periods of better health.
Late life
Richard Maddox's later years were marred by poverty and ill health. The November 1891 Photographic Times wrote of "a breach of trust by a trustee of his, now deceased", though little is known of this. Andrew Pringle, the following month, sent a letter to The American Amateur Photographer saying that "much of what was left for his declining years was made away with by an unscrupulous trustee." Evidence of Maddox's only possible contact with business in relation to his dry-emulsion experiments, is his mention (in the letter of 1887 to Harrison) of how "the process was offered to a firm in Southampton...but it was found there was no time to continue the necessary experiments to raise the rapidity and enhance the value."From 1886, Maddox lived (according to his daughter) in "a most retired manner" at the house called 'Greenbank' in Portswood, Southampton, dying there on May 11, 1902.
Criticism and awards
Fortunately Maddox's work had not been forgotten in certain quarters, and J. Traill Taylor - then editor of The British Journal of Photography - was active in setting up 'The Maddox Fund' and the 'Maddox Testimonial Committee' in 1891. The intention was both to assert Maddox's claim as inventor and to afford him some pecuniary help - and the subsequent response was strong, in both Britain and the United States. The secretary of the committee was Andrew Pringle and the chairman was James Glaisher, president of the Photographic Society of Great Britain.By 1892, £500 had been raised, with a further £100 from the Ilford Company
Ilford Photo
Ilford Photo is a manufacturer of photographic materials known worldwide for its black-and-white film and papers and chemicals, as well as its range of Ilfochrome and Ilfocolor colour printing materials. Ilfochrome was formerly called Cibachrome, developed in partnership with the Swiss company...
. Taylor later criticized John Burgess in a counter claimant as "entering the field two years later, and even then not publishing his process, which remains a secret to this day." Pringle wrote: "Whatever Dr Maddox has done for science has been without hope of recompense, and without attempt to turn his discoveries to pecuniary profit".. Similarly, the editor of the American Amateur Photographer, in the same month, found that "no honor is great enough to bestow on a discoverer who acts so generously in giving his process to the world".
Maddox was awarded the John Scott Medal in 1889 and the Royal Photographic Society
Royal Photographic Society
The Royal Photographic Society is the world's oldest national photographic society. It was founded in London, United Kingdom in 1853 as The Photographic Society of London with the objective of promoting the Art and Science of Photography...
's Silver Progress Medal in 1901.
Death
After his death in 1902, Maddox's daughter Isabella wrote: "My father's medical attendant, Dr. Wales, said that it was 'the triumph of mind over body' that had kept him alive for so long." The obituary in the Almanac of the British Journal of Photography was not entirely uncritical, saying that the "real difficulties of the process were encountered and overcome by those who came after Maddox...whose ideas were not altogether practicable." Yet the obituary also stresses Maddox's readiness to help others "to the fullest of his capacities." Richard Maddox's friend, W.J. Bolton, made an analysis of the chemistry some nine years later.Maddox was survived by his children, Isabella and Richard Willes, an artist, who each died in 1929 and 1953 respectively.